


Stagnation

by Mersayde



Series: My Darlings [6]
Category: Growing A Sun
Genre: Angst, Depression, Gen, Hopeful undertones, My OCs, PTSD, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 07:24:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14515344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mersayde/pseuds/Mersayde
Summary: Life is made up of temporary shifts. Tera, despite what it seems, is no exception.





	Stagnation

_“To be angry is to revenge the faults of others onto ourselves.” — Alexander Pope_

Tera feels empty. It could be that she hasn’t eaten in three days or slept properly in two. Maybe it’s the sunken gaps where her eyes should be. Or the shrouded clouds where her heart should.

She pushes, convinces herself brute force is the way to stop hurting, that if the pain is stuck in her fists than there’s no room left for it in her heart.

You would think she lived her whole life inside of rage, but that’s not true. She used to be gentle, she used to be soft, and vulnerable, and that’s what makes it hard. That's what allowed this unrecognizable pain to build a house inside of her chest, vehemently burying into her skin like a skeleton unseen.

She used to _be_ someone. She can't remember who, but knows that it must've been worth it. She hates knowing that she’s nothing now. She hates knowing that everything she used to be was stolen right from under her nose.

She wonders if life is gentler in another universe, if her sadness would be more poetic, more benevolent than chaotic. Wonders what theories would shine a forgiving light into her bleak abscence?

There’s a weight on her chest that won’t budge. She wishes it would fracture it’s components like the ruinous movements of tectonic plates. She wishes it would alter beneath the soil just enough to hear the earth groan with th ire. Even the most trivial stirs can have cataclysmic effects.

But Tera knows that ou can’t shift what’s already out of place.

Since when did she live her life in such extremes?

Since when did it feel like her emotions and memories are burrowed deep within her veins? Since when did it feel like the atmosphere stopped producing air for her to breathe, since when did colors start to fade out, and smiles start to turn grey? 

She sighs.

Her lungs open. And then close.

And they burn.

She clenches her fist. The slight tingling shouldn’t feel foreign. But it does. And life’s too tiresome when all you can do is amble about in empty gardens, feeling like you'll forget who you are if nothing is there to tie you back. And life’s too draining when all you can do is walk in a place without a place, where nothing feels familiar, nothing but this rancid pain.

Maybe she needs to fuck it out of her. Seems to work for everyone else, she could force it to work for her too.

And when Tera’s in some women’s bed, She waits for that familiar rush to flood her system. She grinds her hips as it claws its way into her skin and— _yes_. This is what she needs. This will make her happy.

But like the tides that greet the shore in the morning’s breeze, it only lasts a moment. Cut off from the pleasure she’s seeking.

Tera inhaled deeply, tries to stop herself from crying when she realizes the emptiness is still closing in.

She scrambles for her clothes and leaves.

Maybe she needs to drink it out of her. has a hypothesis: If you force one poison in, you can flush the other one out.

And with her face hovering over the toilet, she curses, because the pounding ache behind her eyes doesn’t drown out the tears in her throat. A wave of nausea hits and her head is back where it should be. There’s no quicker way to feel than this, right? 

Maybe she needs to smoke it out of her. Maybe the ash will fill the cracks in her body and soothe whatever is missing.

Her hands itch for a cigarette that’s no longer there, they slide down her face instead. It’s been years since she last had one. Remembers when Gabe, and then Ez, expressed their concern. 

Grumpy. Empty. Jittery. But healthy. Kind of. What an ugly color to be painted in. Quitting was hard, but losing the ones you love is harder, or some shit like that.

The silence lingers. She hates the quiet, it leaves too much space for her mind to wander. The roads the voices take always lead her to lost miseries.

She wonders if she could’ve stopped this, the dreaded consumption of her vibrancy. It feels like it’s become her, that there is nothing left to change because this is all that she is. All that she’s meant to be. The black soot that washed over her is now her foundation, is now the thing that keeps flowing when everything else stills.

It descends into her skin first.

She realizes that she has no urge to protect anyone anymore and that scares her. Who is she without being a shield? Without throwing herself head first into a fight that was never hers to begin with?

Then into her bones.

It feels like an anchor is tied to her body, pulling at her vertebrae, at her composure. Plucking each individual structure from under her. That every breath she takes is a struggle. She wonders why she had to be this way. Why she was forced out of her body and into this hollow shell. Why nothing feels like home to her.

Then into her chest.

She looks down at her wrists, imagines that there are bruises littered across her body. Imagines that they stay forever. Maybe it would be proof that she’s had to fight battles before she could tie her shoes, maybe it would be proof that rivers of hushed tears are held deep within her sorrow, that her bones are beginning to ache, that her eyes are beginning to dull. Bruises aren’t infinite, but the memories are, the shadowing ghosts are.

Tera tries her best to compartmentalize her feelings. Tries to break them down into bite sized pieces. But there’s no way to ration trauma. There’s no way to schedule its visits. It takes what it wants, and it hurts when it wants, and reminds you of all the things you forgot you knew, that you forgot mattered, when it wants.

With one swift, dead like motion she sits up and steps off her bed. Gravity pales in comparison to the weight on her shoulders.

She’s made her peace with it.

She’s no longer who she used to be.

She’s made her peace with it.

Life isn’t giving. It doesn’t gift you happiness, it doesn’t gift you strength. It tears you down. It yanks at your strings and worn out joints. It drags you beneath the surface, it drowns you, surrounds you. Makes you bleed.

She grinds her teeth and shuts her eyes.

_She’s made her peace with it._

She drops to the ground. Her eyes promising her cheeks tears like the steady passage of time, inevitable yet gentle.

The mass that was passively sitting on her chest feels like it’s crushing every single cell in her body to dust. And it feels like the air that was passively sifting between her nostrils is now forcing itself out of her body.

It feels like she is under attack. Feels like her veins are trying to expel a threat that’s already in her blood. How do protect yourself from yourself?

You shut down.

And you _hurt._

Why does everything have to hurt?

She can do this. She can make it through this. She _has_ to.

But that’s more of an uncertain plea than a confident statement.

She thinks about Gabe and wants to smile. Gabe's love is like wings of a bird stretching for the first time, unrelenting in its gravity and depravity there of. He's a great friend and his love feels like floating. She thinks about Ez and wants to laugh. Ez’s love is like witnessing the moon overlap the sun, demanding yet clarifying in its presence. He’s a great brother and his love feels like cosmic alignments. 

She has to be okay, has to survive, at least for them. She knows relying on others isn’t the best way, but for now it’s the only thing she can recognize, the only thing that keeps her at ease.

She’ll keep fighting, she’ll keep trying, she’ll keep pushing and pushing and pushing, hoping that she can forge her own light at the end of this constricting tunnel.

 _I’m fine._ She forces. 

It’s a lie, but she hopes that one day it won’t be. She hopes that in there will be a fullness of days where she can rebuild, and this time with flowers and windows and spirit. Hopes that this time it won’t taunt in its desolation, that it can bask in her fluorescent songs. She hopes that there will be no more sealed doors or peeling paint covered in mold. Hopes that even if she can never salvage who she used to be, she can breathe anew, create something worth yearning for. She deserves to rebuild, deserves to know what it feels like to wake up and have the sun shower her skin in warm apologies, she deserves to be able to move without the earth shifting beneath her feet. She deserves to find herself, to become herself and

Maybe it won’t be perfect, maybe it won’t be easy, but it’ll be better than the ones before. It’ll be more defined than the copies of her shadows from the past. It’ll be kind and gentle and strong in its vulnerability. It has to be. So it will. 

She smiles, hope settling into her skin, and then her bones, and then her eyes.

Maybe this is the shift that she needed to discover, maybe this is the change that she needs to become.

**Author's Note:**

> The way Tera processes her feelings is very fragmented. I tried my best to show that here! 
> 
> Sidenote: You deserve to rebuild your happiness, to know what that feels like. Keep fighting for yourself. 
> 
> Comments? Kudos? Favorite parts?


End file.
